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Started rewatching The X-Files from the beginning. Scully: "Yes, I've heard of Fox Mulder. In the Academy, they called him 'Spooky Mulder'." You'd think a load of trainee FBI agents might be a wee bit more inventive with nicknames.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S01E03, 'Squeeze', is the show's first monster-of-the-week episode and one of its best. It parallels the supposedly rational and positivist methods of the normie agents - unreliable behavioural science and lie detection tests - against Mulder's ironically more grounded methods.Permalink On Internet Archive
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This implicit criticism of the unreliable methods that the FBI relies on anticipates David Fincher's Mindhunter by decades. Plus there's a shapeshifty Stretch Armstrong man.Permalink On Internet Archive
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There's also a great scene in which a character muses on the idea that the horrors of the early 20th Century somehow gave birth to greater evil: to dark inhuman forces. It's a heady blend of ideas from Adorno, from Moore's From Hell, and anticipating Twin Peaks: The Return.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S01E08, 'Ice', is a straight-up THE THING rip-off. It is so blatantly and boldly THE THING that it's almost admirable. From location to plot to (toned down for TV) body horror, it's just THE THING.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S01E08 and S01E09, 'Space', were both intended as single-location bottle-episodes to save money but the sets (a remote Alaskan outpost and a Nasa mission control centre respectively) were so expensive that these episodes were among the most expensive in the first season.Permalink On Internet Archive
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A lot of shows wouldn't have the courage to suggest that the Challenger disaster was caused by some kind of alien ghost possessing a Nasa engineer. Bold television.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Off sick today so I'm back to watching The X-Files and, oh boy, it sounds like the next episode has aged badly.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Not as bad as I feared. I envisioned a scene of Mulder speculating about the killer changing gender and Scilly saying "But Mulder, that's impossible, people can't just change gender." But then Duchovny had already sensitively portrayed a trans woman in Twin Peaks, I suppose.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Still, the episode plays on cultural anxieties around gender and sexuality that are by no means universal (especially now in 2022) and the 'horrifying' premise of the episode is basically homophobic and transmisogynist. Not The X-Files at its best.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S01E17 'E.B.E.', where Mulder becomes very paranoid about being surveilled by a shadowy government agency, hits different now that we know about PRISM, XKEYSCORE, Tempora, and the other global surveillance programs that Snowden revealed the NSA and the Five Eyes operate.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S01E19, 'Shapes', was apparently derided for its "political correctness" when it aired which seems wild now since it's really very othering of Indigenous Americans and uses 'manitou' in a way completely divorced from its actual Indigenous cultural context.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S01E20 and S01E21 feel like they've finally got Mulder and Scully's characters nailed. S01E21 also introduces Mitch Pileggi who will become so crucial to the show's dynamic. 20 episodes could be a show's entire run these days and The X-Files spends that much just calibrating.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S02E04, 'Sleepless'. The first words to Mulder of a man who hasn't slept in 20 years: "I'm tired."Permalink On Internet Archive
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An important Tumblr post on the history of Mulder's 'I Want to Believe' poster. gaycrouton.tumblr.com/post/689443310126940160/the-history-of-the-i-want-to-believe-poster-fromPermalink On Internet Archive
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Last episode I saw was about a far-reaching government conspiracy to murder alien-human clones setting up a colony on Earth. This episode is about an invisible elephant. What a TV show.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Evidently I'm not too fussed since I'm deep in to Season Two now but it'd be nice if Disney+ had an option to watch the early seasons of The X-Files in their original 4:3 aspect ratio like Disney+ added for The Simpsons.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S02E25, 'Anasazi', and we're into the territory of the US Government using the smallpox vaccination programme as a means to conduct sinister experiments. In the light of the past two years... yikes.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S03E03, 'D.P.O.': This episode has a young Jack Black and a young that-fella-who-played-Phoebe's-younger-half-brother-in-a-few-episodes.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S03E13, 'Syzygy', starts with a baby-faced Ryan Reynolds dying in a small town possibly murdered by witches. An episode where writer Chris Carter tries to do the comedic X-Files that Darin Morgan had established himself so adept at.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Unfortunately Carter's sense of comedic writing has more of a mean streak than Morgan's and has tinges of misogyny. A lot of jokes at the expense of women characters including Scully.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S03E19, 'Hell Money'. Garbage episode. Mulder and Scully investigate a Chinese organ stealing ring. Boring, Sinophobic, and doesn't even have any paranormal elements. Always nice to see James Hong though and he looks the same in 1996 as he does in EEAAO.Permalink On Internet Archive
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It's amazing how many elements of The X-Files I thought were long-running fixtures of the series but which completely stop being part of it by the end of the third season: Scully's sister, Scully's little dog Queequeg, Darin Morgan's scripts.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Me explaining S04E07, 'Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man', to H.: "So this one is mainly about the bad guy and how he assassinated JFK and Martin Luther King Jr." H.: "Oh. And why is that a case for Mulder and Scully?" Fair point.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S04E13, 'Never Again', has Jodie Foster as the voice of a magic tattoo. What a show.Permalink On Internet Archive
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This episode is also the first time in four years that Scully asks why she doesn't have a desk in the X-Files basement office.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Another brave soul on the The X-Files beat and the thread articulates something I've wanted to say about the physicality and tangibility of how the show looks compared to a lot of modern TV shows. @SzMarsupial/1573813601277714432?t=4LQeVOWWvcOcUymwmL_T_Q&s=19Permalink On Internet Archive
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A useful guide to the various spooky subgenres of The X-Files. @gaycrouton/1576443186016571392Permalink On Internet Archive
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S05E01, 'Redux': Five years in, Mulder and Scully have figured out that the FBI, a governmental agency, might be part of the elaborate US Government conspiracy that they've been investigating.Permalink On Internet Archive
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There's also a fun montage and voiceover scene that mimics the best scene in JFK where Donald Sutherland does a big monologue.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S05E05, 'The Post-Modern Prometheus': Chris Carter has finally tapped into the register for comedic episodes like Darin Morgan's and (sometimes) Vince Gilligan's. A '50s B-movie parody with a Cher-loving Frankenstein's Creature and Peterson from Seinfeld.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Though I'll note that it's unfortunate that so many of The X-Files' comedic episodes (including this one, 'Small Potatoes', and 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space') involve rape and implicitly make light of rape through their tone.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S5E10, 'Chinga': Stephen King co-wrote this one and the literal first image on screen is a Maine license plate. Beyond parody.Permalink On Internet Archive
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After the end of Season Five, on to THE X-FILES(: FIGHT THE FUTURE), the movie that they produced between seasons four and five. Some thoughts on Letterboxd but it is entertaining if a little unsuccessful as a film set within an ongoing series. letterboxd.com/simonxix/film/the-x-files/Permalink On Internet Archive
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Broadly speaking THE X-FILES movie is not connected enough to the series' continuity for fans and too connected to the series' mythology for a wider audience. It's not as successful at changing the status quo of an ongoing series as THE RUGRATS MOVIE which came out the same year.Permalink On Internet Archive
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In other words, it feels like you could entirely skip the movie and your experience of The X-Files as a narrative would not be diminished. Conversely, if you skipped THE RUGRATS MOVIE you'd be like 'Who is this new baby?'. The movie makes a significant (but not damaging) change.Permalink On Internet Archive
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I didn't expect my The X-Files thread to become a comparative reading of The X-Files and Rugrats but God laughs when we make plans.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S06E02, 'Drive': Written by Vince Gilligan and starring Bryan Cranston, this is like an early Breaking Bad episode except instead of cooking meth, Cranston has to continually drive west at over 75mph to keep his head from exploding.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Season Six in general loses a lot of the atmosphere that made the first five seasons of The X-Files successful. The production's move to Los Angeles rather than Vancouver loses the foggy, rainy Pacific Northwest feel that defined the folkloric America of the early seasons.Permalink On Internet Archive
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That said, this and Season Five are some of my favourite episodes purely through familiarity. We had the DVD boxsets of these seasons and I think I liked the more parodic (and less challenging) tone of a lot of these episodes when I was a teen.Permalink On Internet Archive
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S06E12, 'One Son': Damn, it's deflating to have the overarching series mythology wrapped up in a two-parter in the middle of the season that barely involves Mulder and Scully at all. Especially coming so close after the movie which could have done a lot of this narrative work.Permalink On Internet Archive
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After everything, it all comes down to Cigarette Smoking Man directly explaining the alien colonisation plot in voiceover and Mulder and Scully not being involved in the Alien Rebels' bringing about the downfall of the Syndicate.Permalink On Internet Archive
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No critical analysis in The X-Files thread today. Just this. @theduskykitchen/1582902339697942529Permalink On Internet Archive
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The The X-Files thread is back! I've been reading DeLillo's Libra and needed an extra fix of shadowy government conspiracies among men in suits. I chose the very silly S07E19 where they discover the words Christ used to resurrect Lazarus and someone makes a movie about it.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Back on my The X-Files bullshit after I SAW THE TV GLOW gave me a craving for a nostalgic '90s monster-of-the-week show. Unfortunately picking up with Season Eight where there's no Duchovny and so none of the spark seen in this tweet. x.com/scullyxf/status/1819512604991377831?s=19Permalink On Internet Archive
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Finished The X-Files after starting this thread way back in May 2020. I abandoned this thread when I started the last tranche of episodes and continued it on Bluesky but it seemed like a shame not to cap it off here where it all began. bsky.app/profile/simonxix.com/post/3kzzh6uggu42pPermalink On Internet Archive
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As I've shared on Bluesky, I'm pleased to present my Definitive List of Actually Good Monster-of-the-Week Episodes of The X-Files. Hopefully this will save me some time when I start my next rewatch one dark autumn afternoon fifteen years from now.On Internet Archive
